LEAVES FROM THE INSPECTOR'S NOTEBOOK.
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The Great Second-hand Question. The Weakness of "Controlled" Road Transport.
WITH ALL RESPECT for the business acumen and -foresight that have so frequently been displayed by Mr. S. F. Edge in the past, I must plead to surprise at his persistence in his original suggestion that the way tonet rid of the returned army vehicle is to hurl it unrepaired and uncertified into the burly burly of the repair agency and repairing-, organizahons of this and other countriesWith more, of the same respect, I would suggest to Mr. Edge that the very cheap motor vehicle is not the one which is sold for a song. A machine sold out of service in a poor state of repair and patched up by any old repairer may very well be the most expensive machine that a user could possibly acquire. I am afraid I am far more concerned with the effect such a policy would have ota the user, if this course were adopted, although I agree it would certainly find endless work for the repairer and the garage proprietor all over the country ; but is that the primary consideration? .
How Mr. Edge can bring himself to make such a statement as that a motor vehicle, however poor, will soon prove its advantage over the horse, I am at a loss to understand. A poor motor vehicle will not prove its advantage over a horse in nine cases out of ten, and, speaking with very considerable knowledge of my subject, and perhaps even with more knowledge of second-hand commercial vehicles than that of Mr. Edge, I unhesitatingly confirm my original statement that new users are likely to be made non-users in large numbers if they are first tempted to experiment with mechanical transport by the employment of Machines which have not been put into first-elass order to begin with.
It has, too, to be remembered that, if the policy suggested were adopted, there would be no sort of control whatever as to the hands into which such machines would fall, and I am not at all hopeful as to the satisfactory nature of the efforts,of many so-called repairers when'they,come to try their prentice bands on commercial vehicles.
May I finally suggest, to Mr. Edge that it will likely not be the best machines that will be sold out of service, and that machines,inifirst-class order, and particularly those of first-class make, are not likely to be released for civilian purposes for many a long month. The first to go will be those of which the army desires to be quit at the earliest possible moment The proper way to deal with this question, in mst opinion, is unhesitatingly to scrap those machines upon which it is not going to be worth while to spend -any considerable amount of timeaand money in putting them into order. As to the balance, the / manufacturers, with perhaps the assistance of a few of the better-established and more completelyequipped agents, should be called into counsel and encouraged to Ivair and father such units before they are thrown, into service again. If it be true that the indirstry will require numberless new users, the proper way to get them is to produce new (or the equivalent of new) cheap machines and not numberless second-hand ones. How is it to be possible to maintain "the output of our big firms up to the marinium " if the market is to be spoiled by the dumping widespread of thousands of uncertified and unrepaired models of all kinds at merely scrap prices? We want to encourage new users, not to discourage Some time ago, at a time when there appeared to be a likelihood of even greater restrictions upon transport facilities than ever, at a time when such restrictions and control were being much encouraged by k the official mind' and much suffered by tne rest of us, I was one of those who regarded with considerable apprehension attempts which, it was announced, were to be made to pool our civilian transport facilities, and in particular those that were concerned with retail and similar deliveries. As it so happened, I believe I am correct in the assertion that, quite apart from the practicability of any such scheme, the need for it disappeared not very long after the Government had decided to attempt its accomplishment and no sooner than road-vehicle owners all over the country were put to the expense and trouble of further identification of their vehicles. I felt, from the beginning, that it would prove Me possible to strain the powers of control, to rely upon Dora. to such an extent as to achieve the pooling of existing retail delivery methods on anything like a comprehensive scale.
The nationalization of motor transport or, indeed, of any other form of individual transport owned by the industries of the country, is, in my opinion, qrankiy an, impossibility. Moreover, now that the exceptional conditions of war-time have disappeared, such a course, even were it possible, is not only unnecessary but also highly undesirable. I would even venture further and would suggest that, in hardly any cases, would it prove beneficial in the long run to pool individual transport facilities.
Transport is the life of trade and the more trans portethere is invariably the trade, it is for trade. For instance, to take a simple example, in the case of two or three non-competing tradesmen, it would very, seldom, if ever, be founcPthat such businesses could economically and satisfactorily pool their means of transport. The cost of additional vehicles might be saved, but it is a certainty that questions of priority and preference, as between one business and another, would be continually cropping up and the net hindrance to business would be a serious one. It is always better that we should have surplus transport rather than that. we should be niggling in the provision of sufficient of it. There is plenty of room on the roads still, excepting in such special cases as Liverpool dockside and other less noticeable instances in this country. The balance of argument is not in favour of Co-operative road transport other than, of course, by the much more general provision of haulage-contractor facilities and organizations, which, carried on as a separate business undertaking, is inherently sound.
I always smile to myself at the thought of Whiteley's carrying Harrods' parcels and making quite sure that Harrods' got, if anything, preferential treatment, or at least equivalent service. I an2 convinced that not. only the manufacturing side of thesindustry, but what is, from my point of view, more important, the uehig side of it, will benefit by the ' individual multiplication of separately-owned units or fleets. J never did think much of the .0o-operative possibilities in. respect of motor transport even in war-time, and I think less of it now that peace is well under way. The inherent difficulties of which there are many have been encountered in similar form over and over again by those who have essayed, invariably with non-success, to organize Traffic Exchange-and similar facilities for the country.